Memories can often mean different things to different people.

On this day in 1907, former Confederate Brigadier General and U.S. Senator Edmund Pettus died at age 86. The senator, selected by the Alabama legislature to represent the interests of his state, had endeared himself to members of the state government through his prominent and public support for the disenfranchisement of African Americans, as well as his efficient and agile leadership as Grand Dragon of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan.

Thirty-three years later, in 1940, Selma opened the Edmund Pettus Bridge, in commemoration of his legacy as a general and senator. For African Americans living in Alabama, however, the bridge’s name represented a perpetual slap in the face, owing to Pettus’ well-documented history as a proponent of slavery, disenfranchisement, and bigotry.

In 1965, dozens of rabbis, from Reform to Orthodox, including Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, joined a march led by Hosea Williams, John Lewis, Albert Turner, and Bob Mants, attempting to cross the bridge en route to Montgomery in support of voting rights throughout Alabama and the deep South. The protesters were met with armed resistance from state troopers and a group of vigilantes. “Bloody Sunday” quickly became a landmark in American history, helping spur the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and imbuing the bridge with a new sense of meaning.

Though the late John Lewis publicly endorsed keeping the name of the bridge intact to honor it as a battleground in the war for civil rights, there are those who still seek to rename the bridge in honor of Lewis.

The convoluted history of the Edmund Pettus Bridge and its namesake begs us to consider how we responsibly preserve our memories—both as individuals and as a people. How can we acknowledge the needs and roles of others, rather than claim sole ownership, when we preserve memories that we share with others, such as those of the Jewish American immigrant experience, the Zionist experience, the Shoah, and other critical elements in Jewish history?

— Rabbi Josh Knobel